Good Boundaries and Goodbyes: Loving Others Without Losing the Best of Who You Are

by Lysa TerKeurst

When we dare to be so very known, we risk being so very hurt. When we dare to be so very hopeful, we risk being so very disappointed. When we dare to be so very giving, we risk being so very taken advantage of. And when we dare to unnaturally change into what someone else needs, we risk losing ourselves in the process.

We set boundaries so we know what to do when we very much want to love those around us really well without losing ourselves in the process. Good boundaries help us preserve the love within us even when some relationships become unsustainable and we must accept the reality of a goodbye.

But we can’t enable bad behavior in ourselves and others and call it love. We can’t tolerate destructive patterns and call it love. And we can’t pride ourselves on being loyal and longsuffering in our relationships when it’s really perpetuating violations of what God says love is.

Love must be honest. Love must be safe. Love must seek each person’s highest good.

And love must honor God to experience the fullness and the freedom of the sweetest connection between two humans.

Love is not dishonorable. Love does not justify wrongs to enable selfishness. Love does not celebrate evil. Love requires truth. Love leads to honor, kindness, and compassion.

Boundaries protect the right kind of love and help prevent dysfunction from destroying that love. Boundaries help us say what needs to be said, do what needs to be done, and establish what is and isn’t acceptable. Love should be what draws us together not what tears us apart.

Setting boundaries from a place of anger and bitterness will only lead to control and manipulation. Setting boundaries as a punishment will only serve to imprison us. But setting boundaries from a place of love provides an opportunity for relationships to grow deeply because true connection thrives within the safety of health and honesty.

When we’re hurt, good boundaries and goodbyes help us to not get stuck in a perpetual state of living hurt.

boundaries and goodbyes help us to not get stuck in a perpetual state of living hurt.

We can’t enable bad behavior and call it love. Love must honor God to experience the fullness and the freedom of the sweetest connection between two humans. Boundaries protect the right kind of love and help prevent dysfunction from destroying that love.

Love should be what draws us together not what tears us apart. Setting boundaries from a place of love provides an opportunity for relationships to grow deeply because true connection thrives within the safety of health and honesty. When we’re hurt, good boundaries and goodbyes help us to not get stuck in a perpetual state of living hurt.

“You cannot build trust that keeps getting broken.”

The problem is that trust is an incredibly fragile thing to rebuild. The setbacks are cruel. Unexpected sprains are debilitating. And if twisted backward to the point of fracture, the splinters of trust broken over and over are daggers to the heart.

I now believe we must honor what honors God. And in doing so, we must not confuse the good commands to love and forgive with the bad realities of enabling and covering up things that are not honoring to God. When someone’s dishonorable actions beg us not to stay, this should give us serious pause.

I hadn’t wanted to admit that the addictions were surfacing and spiraling again. To admit that would force me to make the choice to once again turn this man I loved over to his choices. To stop the madness, I would have to let go of his hand. Let go of what had been such a big part of my life. Stop myself from stepping in to rescue him over and over. And then remind myself to breathe a thousand painful and fearful breaths every single day. I knew at some point I would stare at my face in the mirror and wonder, But what if I rescued him this time and it finally turned everything around? Or what if I don’t rescue him and something terrible happens? Will I regret this for the rest of my life? Is there anything else I can do?

If you go with what they say, you’ll become more and more convinced you’re the problem. If you oppose what they say, they will make sure you feel you are definitely the problem. Either way, you lose.

you are not crazy. If you are smelling smoke, there is fire. And the only reasonable option at this point is to either put out the fire or get yourself out of the fire. Drawing boundaries can help put out fires before they become all consuming. But if the fire keeps burning with increasing intensity, you’ve got to get away from the smoke and flames. Sometimes, your only option is to say goodbye.

Where there is an abundance of chaos, there is usually a lack of good boundaries.

it’s not unchristian to set these healthy parameters. It’s not unchristian to require people to treat you in healthy ways. And for us to do the same for others. It’s not unchristian to call wrong things wrong and hurtful things hurtful. We can do it all with honor, kindness, and love, but we have to know how to spot dysfunction, what to do about it, and when to recognize it’s no longer reasonable or safe to stay in some relationships.

What I’m not saying is that because of compassion we condone or enable their actions and stay in situations where there’s harm being done. But what I am saying is that, as we take a step back, we can consider having compassion for whatever caused the original root of shame and chaos in their heart that then drove them to try to act and react in such unhealthy ways. We don’t want the hurt they’ve caused to make us betray who we really are. We aren’t cruel or mean-spirited so we don’t want to bring any of that into our boundary setting. I also want to have compassion because I don’t have life so figured out that I never act and react in unhealthy ways. I have my own issues that I need to work on and work through

So, a trigger makes you anxious because it sets off an alarm, making you feel something isn’t right or safe. But the trigger is not the main issue—the main issue is the unhealed trauma still inside you. When you get triggered, it’s pointing either to something from your past not yet healed inside you or a new trauma happening in the present moment.

All relationships can be difficult at times, but they should not be destructive to our well-being.

No matter how much I wanted this friendship to work, it wasn’t working. Parts of it were good. But then the parts that weren’t working were happening over and over. I was spending so much emotional energy trying to avoid another issue that it was becoming increasingly challenging to even enjoy the good times. We had been friends since we were kids, but our lives had gone in dramatically different directions.

Felt.

I knew there were spurs. I knew the spurs would hurt. But instead of acknowledging that the pain was caused by the presence of spurs, I kept mentally beating myself up for being too sensitive.

And then other times I would get so angry and frustrated that I would try to solve the issue by removing the individual spurs from the sand. Never realizing that spurs are what carry the seeds that make more of the original plant. In other words, spurs multiply. Spurs not only won’t go away on their own, but they tend to just get worse and worse. The source must be addressed.

I finally had to realize that to continue to try and solve the problem was part of the problem.

The real issue was I started to resent the amount of emotional access to my life I had given to her.

Just because someone lives close by doesn’t mean we can assume they will be responsible with complete access.

We don’t want to get so consumed with the pain and chaos of unhealthy relationship patterns that we become a carrier of human hurt rather than a conduit of God’s love.

Love can be unconditional but relational access never should be.

What we are looking for are patterns of hurtful and harmful behavior. A hurtful statement can be called a mistake. But a repeated pattern of hurtful statements or uncaring attitudes or even unjust expectations is much more than a mistake. These patterns are misuses of the purposes of a relationship. Why is this so crucial to understand? Because unchecked misuse of a relationship can quickly turn into abuse in a relationship.

Like God, we must require from people the responsibility necessary to grant the amount of access we allow them to have in our lives. Too much access without the correct responsibility is detrimental.

God established boundaries to protect intimacy, not decimate it.

Allowing someone access without accountability will eventually lead to abandonment. If I give you unlimited access to me and there’s no accountability, either I’m going to leave the relationship, or you will. If someone perpetually acts out, that person has abandoned the relationship.

If you don’t have clear rules—if you don’t set boundaries for the relationship—then you’ll be ruled by the other person. You just may not know it.

Relationships often die not because of conversations that were had but rather conversations that were needed but never had.

It’s about no longer being aware of just how dysfunctional things have become and reacting as if something is normal when it absolutely is not. Dysfunction means things aren’t working correctly. In other words, something gets in the way of how things ought to be.

Distortions of reality feed dysfunctions.

It wasn’t that I was resenting my friend or even our friendship. It was that I was resenting what this friendship was doing to me.

“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity. One who has no sense shakes hands in pledge and puts up security for a neighbor” (Proverbs 17:17–18).

It is understandable to want to help out a close friend, but it is not wise to refuse to apply responsibility and reason to this relationship. Otherwise, it could become “a blind guarantee which may lead the recipient to rashness, and both to ruin.”

“While it sometimes can be very hard to say ‘no’ to people who want help, an unwise agreement is still an unwise agreement even if it is difficult to decline getting involved.”

“Adults inform. Children explain.”

Sometimes I can’t find the strength to stand firm with people who know both me and the person with whom I’ve set a boundary. When other people excuse away or minimize this person’s behavior, keeping the boundary can feel doubly difficult. If others don’t feel personally threatened or triggered by this person’s behavior, then they may accuse me of making more out of this situation than I “should.” Usually, these are people who feel a little inconvenienced or frustrated by the boundary and would rather I ignore the issues at hand than address them. This can often happen at the holidays when your family wants everyone to get together, but you have a necessary boundary with someone whose behavior you are no longer willing to tolerate. Or it can happen at work when you are expected to “set aside personal issues” but sometimes professional issues cross over into personal violations.

Trust me with this. If someone is demanding you drop a boundary or trying to charm and convince you that it’s no longer necessary—beware. People who are genuine and honest don’t go on and on trying to convince you what a good person they are.

When we allow a boundary to be violated, bad behavior will be validated.

Boundaries define and protect freedom.